Nobody in the World
by Cloudsinmycoffee9
Summary: based off Robert's line "someone was trying to unload a niece..." and what Cora's possible reaction to that might have been.
1. Chapter 1

She is putting lotion on her hands when he walks in and sits upon the settee, sighing. Her long hair – somehow still the same beautiful chestnut brown, despite his own ever-greying and ever-thinner locks – is pulled into it's customary thick braid over her shoulder. And as usual, he can't help but want to reach out and immediately undo the work of her maid, to feel the smooth locks run over his fingers as they have a thousand times before.

"My, but I'm worn out." He's glad to note her lady's maid already gone. He can speak as freely as he likes now. "How are you, darling? It's been a long day, hasn't it?" he adds, knowing that it's truly been a long day, a few long weeks, a long few years.

She normally greets him with a smile in her bedroom, always polite, his Cora. But as he kicks his shoes off and makes the briefest of eye contact with her in the mirror, he notices her biting her lip and her furrowed brow. For a moment he feels a sort of panic and thinks quickly over the events of the day, wondering if he'd said anything that might be construed as an insult. But he feels certain he didn't do anything "Donk-ish" today – a word Mary has jokingly invented. In fact, they had all been so busy with the arrival and arrangements, he can't think of much significant time they'd spent together at all that might give chance to warrant such a greeting.

"Cora?" he asks, cautiously. "Is something the matter?"

She looks back into the mirror and makes thoughtful eye contact with him, weighing something in her mind. She caps her lotion and turns slightly in her chair to face him, but does not raise her eyes to his when she finally breaks the silence and asks quietly, "What did you mean today? When you said something about someone trying to unload a niece?"

He barks a laugh, almost in relief at her question. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. "I almost remember saying that but I think I made that remark today to someone who wasn't you, darling."

"I was right behind you, and I heard," she offers quietly.

He shrugs. "Yes, well. I mean . . . that was all so long ago."

"It's only I've never heard about it, and I find it odd that you didn't mention anything when we knew we were coming up here."

He stills at her words, pausing for a moment before responding. "Well, no, you wouldn't have known about her."

"And why not?" she turns to look at him now and he sighs heavily as the blue eyes he's always loved so much search his.

"To be honest, because she was the closest . . . that is to say, she was the most likely . . . candidate for me, that is until - " he fumbles awkwardly.

"I see," she interrupts primly, looking back down at her lap. In the few beats before he can decide if he should keep talking, she looks up at herself in the mirror and rubs her neck self-consciously. "I guess I find it strange that after all these years, there are still things we might not know about each other. Things I don't know about you."

He chuckles nervously, not liking the turn in the conversation. "But Cora, can it truly bother you when it was so long ago? You didn't even know her –"

"But you clearly did. And if you have never mentioned her to me before now, knowing you spent significant time together in this place, I can't shake the sneaking suspicion that she meant more than just some random girl you met at a ball."

He sits back against the settee, eyes clenched in confusion before opening them to reach for her hand. "Darling, what has brought this along? You're speaking of something that happened over 35 years ago –"

She swats away at his arm. "So I'm right? Something did happen? Who was she?"

"Cora – "

"And why have you never mentioned her before?" she adds, the forced calm in her tone belying the emotion he can sense underneath.

"I can hardly see how that would have ever been a helpful conversation," he pushes back. But she is on a roll of some kind now, and continues, not seeming to hear his rhetorical comment.

"Come to think of it – despite all you made me tell you about the men who courted me before we became engaged, I don't know much at all about the women in your life before - "

"Really, now, is this necessary?" he tries.

"And I'd simply like to know if I am about to stumble upon some memorable place, or goodness, memorable woman of your past, and so – "

"Cora!" he interrupts, sharply, making her turn to face him from her table. The look on her face is so unreadable, but he sees her chin trembles and the nearness of tears in her eyes, so he continues more softly. "What is this about?"


	2. Chapter 2

"I – " she starts, looking down suddenly to pull at nothing on her gown. She glances back up at him, and he cocks his head to the side, drawing nearer to her.

"Dearest – " he begins as he reaches again for her hand. "I can't imagine what has brought this on – but if it is that silly thing I said earlier, please know it was absolutely nothing – about absolutely nothing, and from so long ago."

His hand reaches hers and she lets it cover her knuckles, lets him glide his fingers over hers in a long familiar gesture before he realizes she is turning away, shutting down.

But he has learned over the years (even more so in the last few months) that if he is patient . . .

His eyes catch hers, searching for a brief moment again in the mirror before she looks back at her own reflection – and he's suddenly struck with a thousand memories of other settees and vanities and firelight in their bedrooms at home, in London, visiting Duneagle, now here, and watching the most beautiful woman he'd ever known fiddle with her earrings, take her hair down, rub lotion into her soft skin, all the while a sparkle in her eyes whenever they connected with his, and a smile on her face at her own reflection. But as he watches her now, those eyes are critical as they sweep over her features. She looks troubled more than anything, and he suddenly wonders when he last saw her smile at herself in the mirror.

And he wonders if even after the peace they have reached in the aftermath of the Bricker incident, in the steady way they have grown closer and intimate once again, if doubts still linger in her mind about his feelings for her. He winces internally to remember that it was her and her alone responsible for the reestablishment of their relationship, seeking him out, being kinder than she ought to have been and then finally reminding him much more gently than he deserved of something he'd always suspected she'd somehow known about, and making him feel even more the fool for ever doubting her.

_"I never, ever wanted him, Robert, you must know that," she'd whispered so quietly in the dark when he'd shuffled into her room that night, finally shamed into returning to where he should have always been, hesitating only briefly before turning back the covers to slide under and lay down as close to his edge of the bed as possible without falling off.._

_"Then why?" he'd demanded, turning just enough to see the tremble run through her body as she took a deep breath._

_"He asked me about things, and then he listened. I – " her voice faltered and his heart stopped. "I was flattered; I felt – I don't know. I'm sorry if I flirted – maybe I did like the attention, but I never, I never –"_

_He heard the tears coming and had wrapped himself around her before he knew what he was doing – drinking in the feel and smell of her in his arms again after weeks of self-imposed abstinence. Her hands met his around her waist and she drew them against her chest, against the beat of her heart, pressing kisses in between the tears that fell on his knuckles. _

_The full-body sigh of relief and love she had breathed as she burrowed further into his arms had echoed in every part of him._

_And he wasn't mad anymore._

_And for the second time in their marriage, under oddly connected circumstances, he'd found himself whispering "don't apologize to me."_


	3. Chapter 3

Almost before he knows why he is saying it, but trusting the feeling within that tells him he should, he blurts out – "She was pretty, as I recall. It seemed quite obvious from the moment I arrived that there were designs for us to . . . get to know one another." He glances quickly at her countenance and catches the slight pursing of her lips; touched somehow that she is jealous of some woman, a mere stranger, who had existed as a remote part of his life quite a long time before they had even been introduced to each other. He takes courage from this and presses on.

"Lord Hexam had arranged hunting, dancing, dining, the usual sort. I think James was here, and a few other lads I knew from school and such. Quite a merry party, as I remember."

"What was her name?" she asks softly.

He is - yet he isn't - surprised when he has to stop and think before answering. It's been so long since any woman's name had any significance beyond his wife and daughters' names.

"Amelia? No. Annette? That doesn't sound right either. Elizabeth? Good God – am I truly getting so old that I can't remember the name of a girl I apparently courted?" he smiles at her, noting the softening around her eyes as she appreciates his small joke, but she doesn't quite smile back at him.

He fumbles a bit with the end of his dressing gown before continuing, wishing they were holding each other in bed instead of having this conversation. But he knows somehow - and for some reason he has yet to decipher - that he must tell her all of it, as best he can, before they can move on.

"Anyway – we got on well enough. Charlotte? This is embarrassing. I think it was Anne. She was quite handsome and perhaps she fancied me, or at least flattered me. We played cards after we all passed through, we walked together occasionally, and there some letters exchanged after we left here, and such and so on. And I believe that was soon the end of it."

Her eyebrow quirks up at him and he can hear her thinking through what he's said. "And so…she was handsome, but not quite handsome enough?" she asks slowly, and he notes that as she turns back to the mirror, she blushes a little. From uncertainty or insecurity, he isn't sure.

"No, indeed, she was quite handsome, as I can recall. Although most women are to men at that age," he chuckles, but is still unable to draw a real smile from her.

"Oh. Well, then. Perhaps she had a bit of scandal in her past? Perhaps hid some dead bodies or evidence of illegitimate children?"

She glances over her shoulder at him as she asks this, and he knows she is referring to their rather complicated collective past as she does so, but is endeavoring to make it appear in more of a light-hearted manner than it truly deserves, if only to break some of the tension that has grown between them.

"No; I believe her record was completely spotless. As far as I know."

Cora frowns at him, rubbing at some unseen spot of lotion on her hand, waiting a beat before asking again. "So…what was it then? She didn't have the money to save Downton?"

"No," he answers honestly, shaking his head. "No, as I recall, she had plenty of money and was in need of a title. I think my parents knew that. It was the reason for Mama concocting the whole outing in the first place."

"Of course, Mama. Always concocting something."

"Perhaps, yes."

"But somehow, this particular scheme didn't pan out for your mama. Why is that?"

He looks at her for a long moment, weighing his words. He thinks of the last few weeks and months, wracking his brain for what might pass as a reasonable and logical explanation for his wife to seem so distracted by what he thought was an innocent comment about a time so long ago; a time buried so deep in the past . . .

As he sits and thinks for a moment, she sighs and takes the opportunity to stand and begin to walk past him to head to her side of the bed.

He reaches for her as she walks by and grasps only the soft silk of her gown in his hand, staring after her helplessly as she sheds her robe and pulls back the covers to slide into bed. He still isn't sure what to say, and feels wretched to see the look of confusion and something almost like defeat on her face as she half-heartedly looks over the books and journals left on the nightstand, assuming the conversation is over.

Her surprise is evident when he moves quickly to lean back against her side of the bed, grabbing her hands and drawing her to stand between his legs, pulling at her resistance to bring her closer to him.

"Because Cora," he begins, reaching for her chin to force her to look up into his eyes, "because even if I didn't know it at the time, I could not be with her. Not her or anyone else. Not ever. Because, dearest, I was meant for you."


	4. Chapter 4

She stills in his arms, not meeting his eyes. He sees her eyebrows working, furrowing upwards and notices the way she turns her head as if to look at anything but him, because it is yet too hard to believe what he says.

And he understands in that moment that although they have seemed to move past the troubled months and complex feelings that Simon Bricker and all that he brought with him had created, there are doubts and fears that still linger there.

He realizes she needs to know that he loves her, beyond any doubt, without question.

And he can admit to himself that he's never told her enough – never been able to give voice to all that he feels for her, for their daughters, for their family. For the way she carries Downton, the way she graciously handles Mama and Cousin Isobel and every scandal and worry and problem that seems to fall in their lap. That he's never quite been able to express how she is his rock, his solid reason for going on when all seems lost, the opinion he treasures most, the only person he truly confides in. In all the chaos, she is his north star.

"Cora," he continues softly, running his hands up and down her arms to relax her into his embrace. "When my parents were trying to see me married and brought me to London and here and several other places, there were always pretty girls, and girls with money, and girls that Mama would likely have endorsed whole-heartedly. But when I met you . . . " he shakes his head and trails off, because how can one describe the sudden changing of one's life that happened in a single moment? Before he can find the words to continue, she sighs and begins to speak.

"Well," she interjects softly, and he delights to feel her lean into him every so slightly, and to see the tiny smile break the tension on her face. "I suppose I was pretty. And I know my father had a fortune. And I was your small chance to rebel against Mama."

"That was not it, dearest. Not at all." He shake his head firmly, drawing her hands up so that he might kiss her knuckles, then settling her hands down on his chest and reaching his own around her waist. "I could have married Eliza-Anne-Charlotte or whatever their names were. It was so obviously desirable and would have pleased everyone. And we would have done our duty and made children and financed Downton. We could have been suitable enough. Perhaps she and I would discuss the gardens and when to open the house in London. We would have received visitors and made public appearances and endorsed campaigns in Ripon and - "

"As you and I do. You and I do those things," she interjects, looking slightly offended.

"Of course we do, darling, because we are supposed to." He leans in to kiss her cheek. "But never, ever did I imagine that being married and doing my duty and protecting Downton could be so much more than that. That there could possibly be more to marriage than what I was "supposed" to do. That I would want to spend my days and my nights with someone so beautiful and loving and dear. Someone I look forward to seeing every day and sharing my day with."

"Do you speak of Isis, dearest? Should we invite her in to hear this confession? For it's rather sweet." She smiles up at him, and he laughs to hear her joke with him, and leans in to kiss her quickly upon both cheeks and then her mouth. He pulls back slightly to continue, his eyes sweeping over the color of her cheeks, the tinge of worry and doubt still in her eye.

He reaches for the ribbon around her braid and pulls it, beginning to unwind the careful work of her maid before he continues softly.

"Cora. Don't you see? I could have been married to someone and lived a life, and it would have worked in the way marriage out of duty does among our kind of people."

Her hair is completely undone now, and she leans back into his hands as he winds his fingers up to her scalp, massaging it slightly.

"But you – you took my breath away the moment I first saw you. Mama was furious, Papa was unsure, but I wanted you more than anything I had ever wanted in my life. You were and _are_ beautiful. You could save Downton. I knew we could walk in the gardens and receive visitors and such. But there was so much more waiting to be discovered. You made me laugh, Cora. You spoke your mind. You didn't just nod and smile. There were no games."

"Want is not the same as love. And we both know you didn't love me when we married, Robert."

"No – love is selfless and my want was selfish. My want is still selfish – for I want you for my own; always for me, always with me. I never even knew there could be more to marriage than duty. You showed me that. You showed me what it is to be so intimately a part of someone else in every way. I am so grateful."

"I am yours, Robert. I truly am, in all ways," she whispers back at him, kissing him softly before pulling away to study him again.

She looks at him, less wary than before, through heavy-lidded eyes as he opens his legs a bit wider to accommodate her, cards her hair through his fingers. He can feel the invisible walls between them dropping slowly, and he rejoices to know true intimacy with his wife once again.

"You have always been honest and open with me, darling. From the start. And I knew from the beginning that life could never be boring or predictable with you. You excited me, you see," he adds, softly.

"And do I still excite you, Robert? Am I still what you want and need? Do you harbor any regrets?" she asks softly, draping her arms around his neck and pushing closer to him in a way that makes it hard to think of anything but how he can get all their clothing off soon and begin to show her just what he means. But her eyes are open and honest and searching his, and he knows he must answer.

"Cora – I could not walk this life with anyone but you. I am more yours than I am my own."

"Oh, Robert. Robert!" she cries softly, wiping away a tear before gripping his head in her hands to bring him to her in a fierce kiss.


	5. Chapter 5

She finally pulls back from their kiss to press her lips against his cheek, his jaw, his neck, before drawing her arms even more fully around him and pressing her body even closer to his. She sighs into his body and he drops his head into the space between her shoulder and neck, wondering when the last time was that he held her so closely.

The soft puffs of air that hitch against his neck let him know she is trying to hold back tears, and he smiles slightly at that. As hard as it was to articulate his feelings, to know that she truly understands and believes all she means to him brings him joy, and he runs his hands more firmly up and down her body, feeling her mold to him against the bed where they both still stand.

His fingers trail up and down her spine, pulling her close, feeling the fabric of her chemise slide under his hands, wondering how he could ever possibly deserve such a woman as a wife and a mother to his children, as a companion for all his years on earth. Wondering at how a body that he knows better than he knows his own after so many years together can still excite him and fascinate him to such a degree. He caresses her harder in his embrace, cherishing the very real warmth and weight and feel of her in his arms, burrowing his face further into her neck and pressing soft kisses there.

Her arms wind themselves around his neck and pull him close as well, her lips find the exposed places of his skin and he swears he can hear her heartbeat, as close as they are. They have made love, and haltingly confessed love, and held each other as they loved through the last few months – but it is finally now that they both feel at liberty to freely caress and demand and demonstrate love for and from each other without the constraints of the past upon them.

She pulls back just a bit to drag her fingers through his hair, to look again into his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Robert, I don't know what foolishness came over me earlier, wondering about some girl from your past. I didn't mean – I don't know." She ducks her eyes and he places another kiss on her cheek.

"Don't worry, darling, it was almost rather sweet," he teases, smiling at the look of indignation that crosses her face.

"Rather sweet?" she demands.

"It's just that you looked like you might have been a little jealous, is all," he moves quickly to amend.

Her lips purse together and he moves to kiss them but she pulls back, a tiny twinkle and a tiny bit of worry in her eyes. "Do I have anything to be jealous of, husband of mine?" she asks, and her tone is light, but he can feel the weight of her words.

"Not at all, my love," he answers, holding her firmly against him as they unconsciously begin to sway in each other's arms at the side of the bed. She dips her head back to his chest, bringing a hand over his heartbeat. Since their early days of marriage, before he could admit his feelings for her, she has always rested her head and her hand here.

"Robert?" she asks.

"Cora?" he answers, drawing his hands up and down her back once more, feeling her nestle against him further still, and thanking God that they've finally claimed each other again so fully after so long.

"I mean it. I am yours, too. I always have been. I always will be."

He presses a kiss to her hair before finding her left hand in his right, drawing it out to the side, bringing it to his mouth and laying soft kisses upon her knuckles. He notices the spots on her hands suddenly – the lines, the skin worn thin in their aging together. He turns her hand over and runs his lips over her wrist, the veins pulsing life under her pale skin there, and pulls her closer when she shivers at the contact.

As he pulls his hands through her hair, he notices the grey streaks lining her brown tresses, he gazes down at her face, looking up at him so lovingly, and he can see the lines the years have placed there, and if he let himself, he knows he could start naming the seemingly countless trials and tribulations they have had to face together, and the ones he is to blame for. He glances down at her mouth, and kisses it before he can help himself, before he can think further.

"Oh, Cora," he breathes into her lips as their foreheads come to touch together. He feels her fingers pass through his hair again and sighs as the weight of her body shifts between his legs, her chest pressed up against his, every inch of them touching and he wonders for the thousandth time in their marriage if she has any idea the affect she has on him.

"I love you," they both whisper at the same time, eyes reaching each other in surprise at their simultaneous declaration before she giggles and he smiles, pulling her back with him upon the bed. She is still laughing when he rolls her beneath him and pins her arm above her head to kiss her neck, delighting in her sharp intake of breath.

So many years together, he thinks, and he can still be surprised and infatuated and in love with his Cora.

"I love you," he says again, kissing her lips, her jaw, her collarbone.

"My God, Cora. How I love you."


End file.
